Book-Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

In Franny and Zooey Salinger spends time with the Glass family again, a family that he visits many times in his short fiction. In "Carpenter and Seymour" he was with the two eldest members of the Glass family kids, but in this book he is with the two youngest members.

Salinger's heroes all seems to have an abiding dislike for fakes and frauds, like Holden Caulfield of "Catcher," and you have to think this comes from the author's own point of view since it is so dominant in his fiction. In this book, the Franny Glass, the youngest of the 7 kids, at about 18 years old, is just realizing how many fakes and frauds there are out there, and is getting sick of them, and trying to figure out how to cope with it. Her older brother, Zooey is trying to help her. What follows is an examination of religion, Christianity, Zen, Buddhism and belief in general. Also a deep thought process and how to decide what is real and what is fake.

And yet this is all much more entertaining than it sounds. Salinger is great with dialogue here. And he makes the meditations on belief interesting and thought provoking. Most of all, he makes us relate to the angst these two young people feel, much as we related to Holden. We all want to wipe the pretentiousness of bosses and co-workers off their faces, and tell them what smug uptight fake shallow people they really are...at least sometimes. Franny and Zooey makes us relate to that urge in all of us, to find and keep that special inner being aloof from the fakery of the world outside, and keep the real you alive.